EUROVISION SONG CONTEST 1974

The 'Eurovision Song Contest 1974' was the nineteenth Eurovision Song Contest. It was held in the seaside resort of Brighton on the south coast of the United Kingdom. The BBC agreed to stage the event after Luxembourg, having won in both 1972 and 1973, declined on the grounds of expense to host the contest for a second consecutive year.
The winner was the Swedish quartet ABBA singing the song "Waterloo" who went to become one of the most popular singing groups of all time. Along with 1988 winner Celine Dion, they are among the few Eurovision winners to achieve international superstar status. Sweden's win was their first.

Contents

Controversies and political events

Results

Score sheet

Map

Controversies and political events

★ The United Kingdom was represented in the contest was the British/Australian pop singer Olivia Newton-John, who came in fourth with the song "Long Live Love". She had wanted to perform a different song in the contest but "Long Live Love" was chosen as the UK's entry by a public postal vote.

★ France had been going to enter this Eurovision with the song "La vie à vingt-cinq ans" by Dani, but they withdrew after the French president, Georges Pompidou, died in the week of the contest.

★ Malta withdrew from the contest for unknown reasons, but had selected Enzo Guzman with the song 'Paċi Fid Dinja' (Peace in the World) to represent them. The singer has confirmed this to be the case. Malta would return to the competition in 1975.

★ Italy refused to broadcast the televised contest on the state television channel RAI because of a song sung by Gigliola Cinquetti which coincided with the intense political campaigning for the 1974 Italian referendum on divorce which was held a month later in May. Despite the Eurovision contest taking place more than a month before the planned vote and despite Cinquetti going as far as winning second place, Italian censors refused to allow the contest and song to be shown or heard. Rai censors felt the song which was titled "Sì" (meaning YES), and which contained lyrics constantly repeating the word "SI" (yes) could be accused of being a subliminal message and a form of propaganda to influence the Italian voting public to vote "YES" in the referendum. The song remained censored on most Italian state TV and radio stations for over a month.

★ Portugal's entry "E depois do adeus" was used as one of the two signals to launch the Carnation Revolution against the Estado Novo regime. The song alerted the rebel captains and soldiers to begin the coup and the tanks of the left-wing military coup to move in. John Kennedy O'Connor, describes it as "the only Eurovision entry to have actually started a revolution", while Des Mangan suggests that other Portuguese entries (he mentions 1998's "Se Eu Te Pudesse Abraçar") would not be likely to inspire coups.

Results

Draw	Country	Language	Artist	Song	English Translation	Place	Points
01		English	Carita	Keep Me Warm	-	13	4
02		English	Olivia Newton-John	Long Live Love	-	4	14
03	Spain	Spanish	Peret (Pedro Pubill Callaf)	Canta Y Sé Feliz	Sing And Be Happy	9	10
04		English	Anne Karine Strøm	The First Day Of Love	-	14	3
05		Greek	Marinella	Krasi, Thalasa Ke T' Agori Mu	Wine, Sea And My Boyfriend	11	7
06		Hebrew	Kaveret	Natati La Khayay	I Gave Her My Life	7	11
07		Serbian	Korni Grupa	Generacija 42	Generation '42	12	6
'08'	''	'English'	'ABBA'	'Waterloo'	'-'	'1'	'24'
09		English, French	Ireen Sheer	Bye Bye I Love You	-	4	14
10		French	Romuald	Celui Qui Reste Et Celui Qui S'En Va	The One Who Stays And The One Who Leaves	4	14
11		French	Jacques Hustin	Fleur De Liberté	Flower of Freedom	9	10
12		English	Mouth and MacNeal	I See A Star	-	3	15
13		English	Tina Reynolds	Cross Your Heart	-	7	11
14		German	Cindy and Bert	Die Sommermelodie	The Melody of Summer	14	3
15		German	Piera Martell	Mein Ruf Nach Dir	My Cry For You	14	3
16		Portuguese	Paulo de Carvalho	E depois do adeus	After The Goodbye	14	3
17		Italian	Gigliola Cinquetti	Si	Yes	2	18

Score sheet

		Juries
		ESCFinlandJ.svg	ESCUnitedKingdomJ.svg	ESCSpainJ.svg	ESCNorwayJ.svg	ESCGreeceJ.svg	ESCIsraelJ.svg	ESCYugoslaviaJ.svg	ESCSwedenJ.svg	ESCLuxembourgJ.svg	ESCMonacoJ.svg	ESCBelgiumJ.svg	ESCNetherlandsJ.svg	ESCIrelandJ.svg	ESCGermanyJ.svg	ESCSwitzerlandJ.svg	ESCPortugalJ.svg	ESCItalyJ.svg
Contestants	Finland		1	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0
	United Kingdom	1		0	0	1	0	4	0	0	0	1	0	1	2	1	0	3
	Spain	0	0		2	0	0	0	0	1	3	0	1	0	1	0	2	0
	Norway	0	0	0		0	0	0	1	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Greece	0	0	0	0		0	0	2	0	0	0	4	0	0	0	1	0
	Israel	0	2	0	0	0		0	1	0	0	0	2	1	0	0	2	3
	Yugoslavia	1	0	1	0	0	0		0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	1	2
	Sweden	5	0	1	2	0	2	1		1	0	0	3	1	2	5	1	0
	Luxembourg	0	0	1	0	1	2	2	0		1	1	0	3	1	0	0	2
	Monaco	0	0	2	1	0	1	0	1	2		2	0	1	2	1	1	0
	Belgium	0	0	0	2	5	0	0	0	3	0		0	0	0	0	0	0
	Netherlands	1	0	0	1	2	1	3	3	0	0	1		1	1	0	1	0
	Ireland	0	1	2	2	0	1	0	2	2	1	0	0		0	0	0	0
	Germany	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0		1	0	0
	Switzerland	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	1		0	0
	Portugal	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2		0
	Italy	2	5	2	0	0	1	0	0	1	4	1	0	1	0	0	1
The table is ordered by appearance.

Map

★ Green = Participating countries

★ Yellow = Countries who have participated in the past but didn't this year